Exaggeration.

Exaggeration is a tool used in animation to give life and entertainment to the animation. Often disobeying the laws of physics to give an action more entertainment value. This is done because where many of the 12 principals are trying to recreate realistic animation, it often comes across as dry and dull, therefore exaggeration, if used well, can be useful to boost entertainment value.

A good example of exaggeration is Croc: Legend of the Gobbos.

In this video you can see that when Croc does a specific attack, his jumping sit attack, he hangs at the top of the jump for a second and all his limbs appear to brace for the attack, followed by a very fast drop. This not only exaggerates the attack and slows it down to show it's powerful, but as a game aimed at children, makes it comic and entertaining.